Well, we’re all but done. Our last final ended a little over an hour ago, we have our farewell dinner tonight, and that’s the show, folks. Maybe it’s just because we’ve been in a “the trip’s almost over” mindset all week, but it does feel like it’s time. I think we’re getting complacent – we’ve established a daily routine, we’ve picked out our favorite places to eat, to hang out, to get gelato (Georgio’s 4 lyfe), we’ve seen almost all of the sites there are to see either in class or on our own, and as a result, we’ve lost that sense of exploration that made the trip so exciting when we first got here. It’s nothing we can complain about or change, because that’s just what happens when you’ve been in the same place for a long enough time. It happened in Spain, it happened in Austin, and now it’s happening in Rome. I still don’t feel like I belong here, but I don’t quite feel like a guest anymore, either.
I realized last night that I’m tired of being intellectual. I’ve spent the last month surrounded by Plan II kids, taking classes and visiting monuments, writing essays, reading entire textbooks, and even reading what might widely be considered “literature” instead of “books” in my free time. My brain’s tired. When I get home, I’m gonna plop down in the recliner and watch Anchorman, Zoolander, and Wedding Crashers back to back to back. Follow that up with some Scrubs and Simpsons, and I should be feeling better. All of this is while I’m eating my own body weight in cheeseburgers and Tex-Mex, of course. And sweet tea. Chick-Fil-A sweet tea. Mmmm….
In our first week here, after we got adjusted to our new lives but before classes started killing us, a group of us were meandering around the city one night. I think it was Amanda Jones that asked, “So, why are you guys here?” Various answers followed – “To see the world” was one, I think “The classes looked amazing” was another. When my turn came, I said, “To make friends,” with a dreamy, sarcastic smile on my face, the only way to pull that line off. Everyone laughed, including me, but they knew I was serious. As amazing as Rome is, as great a time as we’ve had here, in twenty years, I’m not gonna remember that the Cult of Isis was the most popular cult in the Roman empire in the 2nd-3rd centuries A.D. or that the museum housing the Ara Pacis was controversial because it was designed by an American Modernist. I will, however, most likely remember that Magown wants to be a rock star when he grows up (if that ever happens), that Cheuk makes a mean plate of stir-fried rice, that the Amandas are two of the nicest people you’ll ever meet. Our group as a whole hasn’t become as cohesive as I thought it might. No one dislikes each other, but interests are so varied that the whole group doesn’t spend a lot of time together outside of class. We don’t really have a group dynamic, each of us with our own unique niche to fill, as much as fifteen students that mutually respect each other. This trip’s been all about forming individual relationships, and in that respect, it’s been amazing.
Leaving Rome is weirder for me than anyone else, I think, because I have no idea when I’m actually leaving. Nonreving’s tricky. I’m supposed to catch a bus to the airport with five others at 5:45 a.m. on Sunday to catch either a 10:10 or a 10:55 flight. Those are the only two flights of the day, though, so if I don’t make it on either of them, I’m stuck till Monday. There’s a flight tomorrow afternoon that looks better, but it’s not an American Airlines flight, it’s still not definite, and there’s the issue of paying somewhere in the range of fifty euros for a taxi out to the airport. Also, no one else is leaving until Sunday, so I feel like I’d be bailing out a day early if I do that. I could be gone twenty-four hours from now, I could still be here forty-eight hours from now. It’ll work itself out, I’m sure, I’m not worrying unnecessarily about it, but the lack of a definite departure time is my biggest concern right now.
I wasn’t really excited about coming to Rome when I first got accepted into the program (I was the first alternate, I got in because Allison Devereux dropped out. I owe you one, Allison). At the time, “The Rome Trip” seemed like just another massive amount of work heaped onto my plate – health forms, meetings, going to Houston to get a visa, buying textbooks, etc. The first time it really hit me that I was coming to Rome was when our philosophy professor met with a few of us outside of class to give us some tips. She talked about food, the cheapest way to get into museums, stuff like that, and only then did it hit me – “Oh, yeah. I’m living in Europe for a month.”
I’m trying to remember all the little things that make the trip what it was. Stealing internet from Friends’ café by sitting on the steps of the plaza, hidden behind the newspaper stand. Filling up water bottles in public fountains. Missing the soccer game to write an essay and knowing when Italy scores by the explosion of noise from outside. Making coffee in the reverse French-press. Cooking dinner with Cheuk. Haggling with street vendors to save a little bit of cash on t-shirts or sunglasses. Secretly rating form and technique of couples we see making out in public, and there are a lot of them. Jaywalking, not that that doesn’t happen in Austin. 10:30 runs to Georgio’s, Georgio recognizing us and almost expecting us when we show up right before he closes, giving us three scoops, panna (sugarless whipped cream) and a cookie. Complaining about how expensive everything is and how much work we have. Galinsky’s jokes about Gladiator, Titanic, and President Bush. The list goes on.
I’ve learned a lot about myself on this trip. I hear people say that all the time, and I have to admit that I never had any clue what it meant. But with the “fresh start” we got when we all stepped on the plane, I’ve been thinking about how I interact with people, the way I integrate myself into a group, the pride (or, sometimes, lack thereof) that I take in my schoolwork, my inexplicable desire to make every moment count, the way I think about money, and more highly metaphysical issues that no one but me really cares about. Some of the things I learned surprised me a little bit, though.
I do believe that might be it for now. Not sure if this is my last entry, it depends on if I come up with anything else to say. If not, just know that I had a good time. No complaints, no regrets, no worries.
Except about whether I get to fly home or not.
Friday, June 27, 2008
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
A Day at the Beach
Yesterday was beach day. It was amazing, plain and simple. Amanda Jones called and woke me up at 10:30 to let me know that we were meeting at 11:00 , not noon as originally planned. I got up, made a couple sandwiches (one salami and cheese, one Nutella and banana), packed my backpack, threw on my board shorts, a t-shirt, and tennis shoes, and headed downstairs to meet Anne, Priya, Elaine, and the Amandas. The plan was to catch the H-Bus to Termini, the train station, meet up with Magown, and buy tickets for the 11:49 train out to the beach at Sperlonga, about eighty minutes outside of Rome 11:45 or so. Priya and Elaine had Eurail passes, so they ran to catch the train while the rest of us lined up at the self-service machines. Deciding not to take our chances, we bought tickets for the 12:49 train and gave ourselves an hour to relax. Then, Amanda Longoria got a phone call from Elaine saying that she had forgotten her Eurail pass – she was coming back to meet us, leaving Priya by herself.
After an hour of relaxation and a cheap vending machine cappuccino (surprisingly good), we hopped on the train and found a relatively empty car so that we could all sit together. I read and ate one of my sandwiches, and I think everyone else slept. We got off the train at Sperlonga at about2:15 , just in time to meet up with Priya and watch the bus to the beach pull away from the curb. We asked the owner of the adjacent convenience store when the next one was coming: two hours. We decided to walk and asked how far away it was: eleven kilometers. It was already maybe eighty-five degrees and we all had bags, so that was out. Fortunately, two nice Italian gentlemen with two station wagons offered to drive us out there for twenty euros per car.
After an hour of relaxation and a cheap vending machine cappuccino (surprisingly good), we hopped on the train and found a relatively empty car so that we could all sit together. I read and ate one of my sandwiches, and I think everyone else slept. We got off the train at Sperlonga at about
I didn’t think it was the best idea, for obvious reasons, but I got outvoted due to our sheer lack of options. Amanda Jones, Elaine and I got in the first car, them in the back, me riding shotgun. Elaine mentioned later that she wasn’t worried – if he had tried anything, it would have been three on one, and they could have restrained him from behind while I “punched him or something,” she said. Not sure how well that would have worked out, but despite my mental refrain of “This is a bad idea, this is a bad idea, this is a bad idea,” it turned out that we didn’t need this contingency plan, after all. We pulled up at the beach, and the driver gave me his business card as we were getting out of the car – it was an eighth of a sheet of notebook paper with his handwritten phone number and his first name. “Call me if you need ride back,” he said. “Can do,” I said, and smiled. The other car pulled up right behind us, the four of them got out, we shelled over forty euros, and they drove away. We were there.
We hadn’t been walking along the shoreline for two minutes before we heard, “Hey, guys!” We looked over. The other half of our group—Harrison, Dhananjay, Andrew, Ashley, Angela, Sherry, Megan, and Andrew’s friend Abby—were sprawled out in the shade of several umbrellas on rental chairs. Professor Arya had recommended Sperlonga as the best beach within a three hour radius, so I guess running into them wasn’t as big as a coincidence as it seemed originally. We dropped our bags off, slathered on some sunscreen, and headed out into the water.
Most, if not all, of my life’s beach experiences are from the
Overall, it was very chill, very relaxing, the perfect way to start off the last week. The journey back wasn’t nearly as difficult as the one over, no hitches or missed buses/trains to speak of. Being in the sun that long sucked a lot of energy out of me, but I still had my second five-page paper to write when we got home at about
P.S. George Carlin died. That sucks.
P.P.S. What's this I hear about a tomato famine?
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Reflection
There’s something to be said about living simply. Right now I’m in my flat, sitting in bed, back against the wall. The windows are open and I’m in my boxers, drinking a glass of peach juice from the fridge, but I’m still hot. Very hot. That’s what no AC in June on the top floor gets you. I got up at about noon today (which I don’t regret, since last week was killer), made a cup of coffee, and wrote for about two and a half hours. Somewhere in there, I took a break for lunch – pasta and tomato sauce with bits of ham chopped up and thrown in. Cheuk and I went to the grocery store with the Amandas to buy stuff for dinner tonight. We’re starting to have to be careful about what we buy – we’ll be gone a week from today, so we need to make sure we’ve eaten everything by then. Stuff there’s no way we’ll finish, like our bottle of olive oil and our massive box of salt, we’ll probably give to the new neighbors that moved in yesterday.
The plan is to spend most of tonight reading and writing. One paper down, one to go, but I also have my twenty-minute presentation on Wednesday afternoon that I’ve only started researching for. Luckily, I’m basing my second paper on my presentation, so I really only have to learn about one topic and then apply my newly acquired information twice. I’m doing digital archeology, the process of recreating buildings, fora, and even the entire city using CG programs. I was inspired by a segment I saw on CNN while I was sitting in the terminal at JFK waiting for my flight. A group of archeologists from the University of Virginia is digitally reconstructing the entire city of Rome as it looked on June 21st, 320 AD, the supposed height of the empire. When it’s finished, they’re going to put it up on the Internet and let people explore it via an avatar, a lot like World of Warcraft (which I’ve never played, I swear). It sounds pretty interesting.
I’m doing as much as I can tonight because we’re taking the train out to the beach tomorrow. I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen the ocean, not counting what I saw out the window on my transcontinental flight over here. It’s been a good four or five years, probably. I’ll probably have to stay up late (late meaning my normal bedtime back home) tonight and tomorrow night to compensate for it, but it’s totally worth it. I’m excited. You think if I start doing sit-ups now, there’ll be a noticeable difference in my abs fourteen hours from now?
Anyway, that’s my life right now – lots of reading, lots of writing, lots of exploring, whether by foot, bus, or subway. Lots of cappuccinos and espressos. Lots of gelato. Lots of cooking. Lots of time around the same people, or, if you choose, lots of time by yourself. To each his own, I guess. Lots of confusion and misunderstandings. The language barrier’s tricky like that. Lots of information, some handed to us, some self-taught, some missed completely, I’m sure. Lots of laughter, like when Magown proposed that we sack Rome because it hasn’t happened for almost a century and a half. Lots of photos, and with them, lots of premature sentimentality. Lots of fun. Lots of experience. Lots of memories. Lots of friendship.
When I talk about living simply, of course we’re still living comfortably. Right now, I’m typing on my thousand-dollar laptop, listening to my (albeit outdated) three-hundred-dollar iPod, and when I’m done, I’m going to upload the photos from my hundred-dollar digital camera onto my aforementioned laptop. None of us have shed our multimedia addictions completely, I don’t think. It’s the little stuff, stuff most college students never think about, that gets to you. If I want to use the Internet, I have to put pants on and go to the café across the street. If I want cold water, I have to put a glass of tap water in the fridge. If I’m hot, I have to (*gasp*) open the window. If I want to go somewhere, I have to either walk there or attempt to navigate the bus system. It’s kind of nice, this increased self-reliance and lack of over-convenience – I have to make a conscious decision to do anything, because nothing’s right in front of me anymore. Don’t know if any of that makes sense.
But yeah, beach tomorrow, class Tuesday through Thursday, finals on Friday, chilling on Saturday, and then flying home on Sunday, back to Texas for the rest of the summer. Better enjoy this week while I can, because I’m going to spend the next month and a half working to try to make back what I spent in my first two weeks or so here. No complaints, no regrets, but…yeah. Hope life in the States is treating everyone okay. Catch you in a week.
P.S. 21st birthday countdown: 6 days, 9 hours, 42 minutes. Booyakasha.
The plan is to spend most of tonight reading and writing. One paper down, one to go, but I also have my twenty-minute presentation on Wednesday afternoon that I’ve only started researching for. Luckily, I’m basing my second paper on my presentation, so I really only have to learn about one topic and then apply my newly acquired information twice. I’m doing digital archeology, the process of recreating buildings, fora, and even the entire city using CG programs. I was inspired by a segment I saw on CNN while I was sitting in the terminal at JFK waiting for my flight. A group of archeologists from the University of Virginia is digitally reconstructing the entire city of Rome as it looked on June 21st, 320 AD, the supposed height of the empire. When it’s finished, they’re going to put it up on the Internet and let people explore it via an avatar, a lot like World of Warcraft (which I’ve never played, I swear). It sounds pretty interesting.
I’m doing as much as I can tonight because we’re taking the train out to the beach tomorrow. I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen the ocean, not counting what I saw out the window on my transcontinental flight over here. It’s been a good four or five years, probably. I’ll probably have to stay up late (late meaning my normal bedtime back home) tonight and tomorrow night to compensate for it, but it’s totally worth it. I’m excited. You think if I start doing sit-ups now, there’ll be a noticeable difference in my abs fourteen hours from now?
Anyway, that’s my life right now – lots of reading, lots of writing, lots of exploring, whether by foot, bus, or subway. Lots of cappuccinos and espressos. Lots of gelato. Lots of cooking. Lots of time around the same people, or, if you choose, lots of time by yourself. To each his own, I guess. Lots of confusion and misunderstandings. The language barrier’s tricky like that. Lots of information, some handed to us, some self-taught, some missed completely, I’m sure. Lots of laughter, like when Magown proposed that we sack Rome because it hasn’t happened for almost a century and a half. Lots of photos, and with them, lots of premature sentimentality. Lots of fun. Lots of experience. Lots of memories. Lots of friendship.
When I talk about living simply, of course we’re still living comfortably. Right now, I’m typing on my thousand-dollar laptop, listening to my (albeit outdated) three-hundred-dollar iPod, and when I’m done, I’m going to upload the photos from my hundred-dollar digital camera onto my aforementioned laptop. None of us have shed our multimedia addictions completely, I don’t think. It’s the little stuff, stuff most college students never think about, that gets to you. If I want to use the Internet, I have to put pants on and go to the café across the street. If I want cold water, I have to put a glass of tap water in the fridge. If I’m hot, I have to (*gasp*) open the window. If I want to go somewhere, I have to either walk there or attempt to navigate the bus system. It’s kind of nice, this increased self-reliance and lack of over-convenience – I have to make a conscious decision to do anything, because nothing’s right in front of me anymore. Don’t know if any of that makes sense.
But yeah, beach tomorrow, class Tuesday through Thursday, finals on Friday, chilling on Saturday, and then flying home on Sunday, back to Texas for the rest of the summer. Better enjoy this week while I can, because I’m going to spend the next month and a half working to try to make back what I spent in my first two weeks or so here. No complaints, no regrets, but…yeah. Hope life in the States is treating everyone okay. Catch you in a week.
P.S. 21st birthday countdown: 6 days, 9 hours, 42 minutes. Booyakasha.
Friday, June 20, 2008
xkcd
Here's my favorite strip from an online comic called xkcd. Seems to fit the whole topic of the blog pretty well. Click on it for a bigger image.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Respite
Quick epilogue to my last post that I forgot to write about on Sunday - last Friday, we went to the EUR (Expositione Universale di Roma) district on the outskirts of Rome. It's the area that Mussolini built up out of the slums in the 1920's and 1930's to be the political headquarters for his Fascist regime. The "inner city" of Rome, where we spend 99% of our time, probably hasn't changed much in the last century or so, what with its cobblestoned streets, brick buildings, etc. The EUR, however, for all intents and purposes, is a modern city. Stepping off the bus, the first things we saw were asphalt beneath our feet, glass office buildings, and parking garages. It was either Andrew or Harrison that said, almost with a note of disappointment in his voice, "It looks just like North Texas."
It's been a pretty big week so far. We started off, as I've already said, with two midterms on Monday and our two five-pagers on Tuesday. For the amount of work that we do, nobody's that stressed about grades. Galinsky and Arya both seem to be of the school of thought that if you put in the effort, do good work, and participate in lectures, there's no reason why you shouldn't get an A. Besides, this is the first year that Plan II has done a study abroad program, and they need it to go well. They can't have fifteen students coming back and talking about how many B's and C's got added to their collective transcripts. Come to think of it, the Humanities rewrite I was so miffed at is probably one of those "keep trying until you get an A" assignments. Guess I can't complain.
Funny story from when we visited the Pantheon on Tuesday. I'm not sure how familiar my readers are with geography, but the Pantheon is Rome, which is in Italy, which is in Europe, which is across the Atlantic Ocean from my hometown of Dallas, Texas. We're walking around, looking up at the skylight, listening to Priya's presentation, when who do I see? Tom and Leslie Nacke, our next-door neighbors for the past fifteen years. I slipped away from the group to say hi, and we chatted about how awesome Rome is and what a small world it is. They had just gotten to Rome two nights before and were leaving the next day to go on to Florence, I think, which makes the event all the weirder. Next on my people-to-run-into list: either a) one of the Cistercian brothers (who spend two years in Rome as part of their novitiate) or b) Tom Hanks (who's filming "Angels and Demons" here for the next couple weeks).
The neighborhood where we're staying is called Trastevere, and it's located right across the Tiber from the main part of the city. We've decided that Trastevere is either Latin or ancient Greek for "noisiest neighborhood in Europe." Our building doesn't have AC, and Cheuk and I are on the top floor, meaning we have to keep our windows open 24/7 if we don't want to cook in our own juices every night. Unfortunately for us, the time we consider bedtime is the time that the people at large consider let's-get-drunk-and-start-yelling time. In their defense, we've been going to bed pretty early (midnight, one-ish), so we can't complain too much, but it's not just the weekends. It's every single night without fail. Additionally, the windows of our bedroom face a main highway that runs alongside the river. Fun fact - Italian drivers use the horn as much as they use the brake pedal. We've gotten pretty good at tuning out the cacophony of honking duels, squealing brakes, revving motorcycles, and the occasional shave-and-a-haircut followed after a couple seconds of silence by an obliging, almost begrudging, two bits as we fall asleep each night.
I need to head out because we're meeting downstairs in less than five minutes, so sorry if this entry's a little shorter than normal. A week from tomorrow is our last day here, we're chilling out on Saturday, and I (hopefully) leave on Sunday, so things are wrapping up fast. Galinsky said he's cramming as much as he can into this week so that we can take our last week to just decompress and enjoy Europe before we head home. That means either substantially more or substantially less blogging, depending on how we decide to handle our free time. So, until then, ciao for now.
It's been a pretty big week so far. We started off, as I've already said, with two midterms on Monday and our two five-pagers on Tuesday. For the amount of work that we do, nobody's that stressed about grades. Galinsky and Arya both seem to be of the school of thought that if you put in the effort, do good work, and participate in lectures, there's no reason why you shouldn't get an A. Besides, this is the first year that Plan II has done a study abroad program, and they need it to go well. They can't have fifteen students coming back and talking about how many B's and C's got added to their collective transcripts. Come to think of it, the Humanities rewrite I was so miffed at is probably one of those "keep trying until you get an A" assignments. Guess I can't complain.
Funny story from when we visited the Pantheon on Tuesday. I'm not sure how familiar my readers are with geography, but the Pantheon is Rome, which is in Italy, which is in Europe, which is across the Atlantic Ocean from my hometown of Dallas, Texas. We're walking around, looking up at the skylight, listening to Priya's presentation, when who do I see? Tom and Leslie Nacke, our next-door neighbors for the past fifteen years. I slipped away from the group to say hi, and we chatted about how awesome Rome is and what a small world it is. They had just gotten to Rome two nights before and were leaving the next day to go on to Florence, I think, which makes the event all the weirder. Next on my people-to-run-into list: either a) one of the Cistercian brothers (who spend two years in Rome as part of their novitiate) or b) Tom Hanks (who's filming "Angels and Demons" here for the next couple weeks).
The neighborhood where we're staying is called Trastevere, and it's located right across the Tiber from the main part of the city. We've decided that Trastevere is either Latin or ancient Greek for "noisiest neighborhood in Europe." Our building doesn't have AC, and Cheuk and I are on the top floor, meaning we have to keep our windows open 24/7 if we don't want to cook in our own juices every night. Unfortunately for us, the time we consider bedtime is the time that the people at large consider let's-get-drunk-and-start-yelling time. In their defense, we've been going to bed pretty early (midnight, one-ish), so we can't complain too much, but it's not just the weekends. It's every single night without fail. Additionally, the windows of our bedroom face a main highway that runs alongside the river. Fun fact - Italian drivers use the horn as much as they use the brake pedal. We've gotten pretty good at tuning out the cacophony of honking duels, squealing brakes, revving motorcycles, and the occasional shave-and-a-haircut followed after a couple seconds of silence by an obliging, almost begrudging, two bits as we fall asleep each night.
I need to head out because we're meeting downstairs in less than five minutes, so sorry if this entry's a little shorter than normal. A week from tomorrow is our last day here, we're chilling out on Saturday, and I (hopefully) leave on Sunday, so things are wrapping up fast. Galinsky said he's cramming as much as he can into this week so that we can take our last week to just decompress and enjoy Europe before we head home. That means either substantially more or substantially less blogging, depending on how we decide to handle our free time. So, until then, ciao for now.
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Procrastination!
Success! Every blog entry I’ve posted so far has been written either in my flat or at AIRC headquarters. Lame. This time, it’s a lazy Sunday afternoon, I’m sitting under a cloudless sky at the Good Café, sipping a cappuccino that I ordered in Italian (“Ciao! Prendo cappuccino, per favore”), and typing away on my laptop. Pretentious much? I don’t really have anything important to say, just some random thoughts I probably won’t even bother to organize or put in sequence. Consider yourself warned.
Just like at school, the constant struggle here in Rome is to find the balance between work and play. We have two midterms on Monday, two five-page papers due on Tuesday, and I have to do a rewrite of my Humanities paper from last week (apparently, the assignment was “Research and write about anything we’ve discussed over the past week that interests you, unless you spend too much time researching and too little time haranguing your reader about your personal philosophy on the subject, in which case you’ll have to rewrite it to emphasize the latter.” Nah, I’m not bitter). Granted, Galinsky and Arya have already given us the essay topics for the midterms, which are open-journal anyway, and I’ve already finished one of the papers, but still, this kind of week usually only comes twice in a semester, not twice in a month.
Besides, in Austin, playing means napping, video games, movies, concerts, late-night chats, etc. In Rome, to me, at least, it seems like every free moment not spent enjoying things we can’t enjoy back home is a waste of time. I’ve been in a movie mood lately, for example, but if I’m only in Rome for twenty-eight days, a mere 672 hours, I’m not going to spend two of them shut up in my room watching Austin Powers. Nobody’s quite at that extreme, but the workload is just frustrating enough to feel like I’m spending too much time indoors with the windows closed to keep me focused. Yesterday, for example, I did research at the Traiano library from noon to three and wrote the first of my two papers from 3:30 until about 10:00 p.m., with quick breaks for dinner, coffee, etc. The Amandas, Elaine, Magown and I walked around for a couple hours after that, but still, that’s almost an entire Saturday.
Another shouldn’t-be-a-big-deal-but-still-seems-like-it moment for me: on Friday night, I went to the bar across the plaza from our flats with Elaine and had a couple beers. That’s legal in Italy, which means I’m allowed to put it up on the Internet. It won’t really matter two weeks from today, anyway, but it’s one of those moments any self-respecting college student who’s always looked to young to be able to pass for 21 on a fake ID will remember for the rest of his life. Even Elaine thought I was weird for making a moment out of it, I think, but I'm sure plenty of other people think the same thing for far better reasons, so it won't keep me up at night.
Hard to believe the trip is already more than halfway over. It seems like an eternity and the blink of an eye at the same time. Studying for the midterm, I was looking over some notes I took last Wednesday, which was only four days ago but seems like so much longer. Two weeks ago, on the other hand, was our first site visit, the Roman Forum, and that seems just like yesterday. Weird how that happens – the days drag by so slowly, but when you think about how they all add up, you wonder where all the time went.
Cappuccino’s all gone; I’ve resorted to scraping the foam off the inside walls of the cup. Just FYI.
Professor Galinsky, Dhananjay, the Amandas, Anne, Elaine, Cheuk, and I went to the Latin mass at St. Peter’s basilica this morning. I remembered bits and pieces of some of the prayers, namely the Pater Noster (Our Father) and the Sanctus Sanctus Sanctus (Holy Holy Holy), from Fr. Paul’s seventh grade Latin class. There’s not much I can say about the basilica that hasn’t already been said in every travel guide ever written, but a paragraph in my Rick Stevens book just doesn’t do it. It’s massive. Marble and gold everywhere. The absolute lowest ceiling I saw was maybe six stories above our heads. Every possible surface is decorated with relief carvings, inscriptions, precious metals, little side chapels, etc. I’ve been there once before, during our trip before senior year of high school, but it somehow seemed more impressive this time. Hate to say it, but on that trip, we’d seen so many impressive churches already that St. Peter’s seemed like just another one. This time, though, after oohing and aahing over half-crumbled stone columns for two weeks, St. Peter’s was epic. Glad I went, might even go again next week.
I should probably log off and start studying at this point. Logically, I know that tomorrow’s midterms aren’t going to be hard, but there’s that little voice in the back of my head shouting “Test tomorrow! Quit Facebooking and study!” With that in mind, two parting thoughts: Happy Belated Birthday, Opa, and Happy Father’s Day, Dad:) I haven’t called home since I’ve been here, so I’ll probably check in tonight and have a real-time conversation with everyone. It’s 8:30 a.m. there right now, though, so I don’t know how appreciative they’d be. Have a good week, gents.
Just like at school, the constant struggle here in Rome is to find the balance between work and play. We have two midterms on Monday, two five-page papers due on Tuesday, and I have to do a rewrite of my Humanities paper from last week (apparently, the assignment was “Research and write about anything we’ve discussed over the past week that interests you, unless you spend too much time researching and too little time haranguing your reader about your personal philosophy on the subject, in which case you’ll have to rewrite it to emphasize the latter.” Nah, I’m not bitter). Granted, Galinsky and Arya have already given us the essay topics for the midterms, which are open-journal anyway, and I’ve already finished one of the papers, but still, this kind of week usually only comes twice in a semester, not twice in a month.
Besides, in Austin, playing means napping, video games, movies, concerts, late-night chats, etc. In Rome, to me, at least, it seems like every free moment not spent enjoying things we can’t enjoy back home is a waste of time. I’ve been in a movie mood lately, for example, but if I’m only in Rome for twenty-eight days, a mere 672 hours, I’m not going to spend two of them shut up in my room watching Austin Powers. Nobody’s quite at that extreme, but the workload is just frustrating enough to feel like I’m spending too much time indoors with the windows closed to keep me focused. Yesterday, for example, I did research at the Traiano library from noon to three and wrote the first of my two papers from 3:30 until about 10:00 p.m., with quick breaks for dinner, coffee, etc. The Amandas, Elaine, Magown and I walked around for a couple hours after that, but still, that’s almost an entire Saturday.
Another shouldn’t-be-a-big-deal-but-still-seems-like-it moment for me: on Friday night, I went to the bar across the plaza from our flats with Elaine and had a couple beers. That’s legal in Italy, which means I’m allowed to put it up on the Internet. It won’t really matter two weeks from today, anyway, but it’s one of those moments any self-respecting college student who’s always looked to young to be able to pass for 21 on a fake ID will remember for the rest of his life. Even Elaine thought I was weird for making a moment out of it, I think, but I'm sure plenty of other people think the same thing for far better reasons, so it won't keep me up at night.
Hard to believe the trip is already more than halfway over. It seems like an eternity and the blink of an eye at the same time. Studying for the midterm, I was looking over some notes I took last Wednesday, which was only four days ago but seems like so much longer. Two weeks ago, on the other hand, was our first site visit, the Roman Forum, and that seems just like yesterday. Weird how that happens – the days drag by so slowly, but when you think about how they all add up, you wonder where all the time went.
Cappuccino’s all gone; I’ve resorted to scraping the foam off the inside walls of the cup. Just FYI.
Professor Galinsky, Dhananjay, the Amandas, Anne, Elaine, Cheuk, and I went to the Latin mass at St. Peter’s basilica this morning. I remembered bits and pieces of some of the prayers, namely the Pater Noster (Our Father) and the Sanctus Sanctus Sanctus (Holy Holy Holy), from Fr. Paul’s seventh grade Latin class. There’s not much I can say about the basilica that hasn’t already been said in every travel guide ever written, but a paragraph in my Rick Stevens book just doesn’t do it. It’s massive. Marble and gold everywhere. The absolute lowest ceiling I saw was maybe six stories above our heads. Every possible surface is decorated with relief carvings, inscriptions, precious metals, little side chapels, etc. I’ve been there once before, during our trip before senior year of high school, but it somehow seemed more impressive this time. Hate to say it, but on that trip, we’d seen so many impressive churches already that St. Peter’s seemed like just another one. This time, though, after oohing and aahing over half-crumbled stone columns for two weeks, St. Peter’s was epic. Glad I went, might even go again next week.
I should probably log off and start studying at this point. Logically, I know that tomorrow’s midterms aren’t going to be hard, but there’s that little voice in the back of my head shouting “Test tomorrow! Quit Facebooking and study!” With that in mind, two parting thoughts: Happy Belated Birthday, Opa, and Happy Father’s Day, Dad:) I haven’t called home since I’ve been here, so I’ll probably check in tonight and have a real-time conversation with everyone. It’s 8:30 a.m. there right now, though, so I don’t know how appreciative they’d be. Have a good week, gents.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
I Feel So Grown Up
A couple times over the past couple week, I’ve stopped whatever I was doing, looked up at whoever I was with, and said, “Man…I feel so grown up.” The first time it happened, I was walking with Magown and Amanda Jones from the Traiano Library back to our flats. Three Americans in Rome, backpacks on our backs, sweaty from a day of site visits, lined up single-file to help us navigate the crowd. The phrase “backpacking through Europe” immediately jumped to mind – sure, we’re not exactly staying in hostels or taking overnight trains halfway across the continent, but we were wearing backpacks in Europe, so I’m gonna go ahead and count it. Aside from the time we spend in class four days a week, we’re pretty much on our own. We don’t have to report to anyone, make it home by some kind of curfew, anything like that. Whatever we do outside of class, alone or together, near or far, legal or illegal, is completely ours to decide. We’re living in Rome.
Another time it happened was when Cheuk and I were making dinner last week. I’ve lived in the Quad for the past two years, and I’m living there next year, so I’m still relying on the dining hall and Bevo Bucks for food. Here, though, we decide what we want to eat, head over to the supermarket, buy it, come back to our flat, cook it, and eat it. We’re a bit limited both by funds and by our collective culinary know-how, but I can’t help feeling like we’re playing house every time one of asks the other, “What do you wanna make for dinner?” Our repertoire so far includes various combinations of pasta, tomato sauce, ground beef, salami, cheese, eggs (ten eggs for a euro, it’s a friggin’ steal), bread, olive oil, and, of course, Nutella. On the seventh day, God didn’t rest. He created Nutella. The two of us made our way through a 500g jar in just over a week, and we’ve already put a good dent in the 750g jar we bought after that. We rationalize the sheer volume of chocolate we’re putting in our bodies by taking into account all the walking that we do.
I also feel grown up when I think about how much my sleeping schedule has shifted since I’ve been here. At school and back home, I’ll go to bed at two, three, sometimes four, and get up well past noon. Here, though, our days are so full that I’ll start feeling pooped around eleven. Last night, I stayed up till about one to finish up some reading, and I caught myself thinking, “Wow, I’m up late.” Also take into account that our classes start at nine every morning, meaning we have to leave no later than 8:40, meaning we need to get up around 8:00, 8:15 if we both want to shower and eat breakfast. I’m not sure what’s weirder, the fact that my body’s used to the schedule, or the fact that my mind is, too.
Anyway, we were pretty much on our own for the weekend. Friday, we saw the frescoes at the Chapel of Santa Maria Antiqua and then the Colosseum. The Colosseum wasn’t quite as big as I expected it to be based on movies and postcards and stuff, but when you stand on the deck and just look around, it hits you just how massive the thing really is and how much manpower it must’ve taken to build it. I got some good pictures, obviously. Saturday was our first sleep-in day – woke up at eleven, worked on my paper for a couple hours, lunch, more working on my paper, supermarket, dinner, then hanging out in the Amandas’ room.
Sunday, a group of us got together for brunch in Dhananjay and Harrison’s room – by pitching in three euro or so, we all got scrambled eggs, bread (fresh bread, not packaged), jam, Nutella, fresh fruit, and coffee. Lots of coffee. After that, we headed over to the flea market that’s set up every Sunday afternoon. Anything you could possibly want to buy, from clothing to food to electronics to souvenirs, they have a dozen booths each. The only thing I bought was a power converter so I could plug two-pronged thingies into the three-prong outlet in our wall. We wandered around the city for a couple hours after that, bought some gelato (current favorite flavor: lemon), dinner, then back to our respective flats for a night of reading.
Monday was paper day – we have two five-page papers due every Tuesday, and the library’s open all day Monday, so I don’t foresee any other Monday here being any different than this one. I finished my first paper on Saturday night, but I still had to add the bibliography and throw in a couple citations. I did all the research for my second paper, wrote maybe three hundred words, then photocopied/printed everything I needed to bring back home with me. At home, I got three and a half pages done before the Amandas knocked on our door and asked if we wanted to head over to the Spanish steps and the Colosseum all lit up (it was night by that point). Of course we went (again, more pictures I’ll put up on Facebook or Filckr at some point), of course it took longer than we expected, of course I didn’t make it back to my paper till just before midnight, of course it was worth it.
Nothing too overwhelming on Tuesday, just a couple site visits and the afternoon off. I napped for a few hours, ate dinner, hit up an Internet café for my e-mail/Facebook fix, and read till bedtime. Same thing today.
I think I’m all written out for the time being. No fun anecdotes to close off with, just a general feeling of contentment as I’m finally getting the travel bug out of my system. On Sunday, I sat on the steps of the Piaza Trilussa for about an hour and just peoplewatched (yes, Microsoft Word, that’s a word). I probably saw more Americans than Italians wandering through the market. At some point, a guy sat down a couple rows in front of me and played his sax for about half an hour; that was neat. Anyway, hope summer is treating everyone well enough. It’s 7:42 a.m. CST as I’m posting this, so have a good day, I guess.
Another time it happened was when Cheuk and I were making dinner last week. I’ve lived in the Quad for the past two years, and I’m living there next year, so I’m still relying on the dining hall and Bevo Bucks for food. Here, though, we decide what we want to eat, head over to the supermarket, buy it, come back to our flat, cook it, and eat it. We’re a bit limited both by funds and by our collective culinary know-how, but I can’t help feeling like we’re playing house every time one of asks the other, “What do you wanna make for dinner?” Our repertoire so far includes various combinations of pasta, tomato sauce, ground beef, salami, cheese, eggs (ten eggs for a euro, it’s a friggin’ steal), bread, olive oil, and, of course, Nutella. On the seventh day, God didn’t rest. He created Nutella. The two of us made our way through a 500g jar in just over a week, and we’ve already put a good dent in the 750g jar we bought after that. We rationalize the sheer volume of chocolate we’re putting in our bodies by taking into account all the walking that we do.
I also feel grown up when I think about how much my sleeping schedule has shifted since I’ve been here. At school and back home, I’ll go to bed at two, three, sometimes four, and get up well past noon. Here, though, our days are so full that I’ll start feeling pooped around eleven. Last night, I stayed up till about one to finish up some reading, and I caught myself thinking, “Wow, I’m up late.” Also take into account that our classes start at nine every morning, meaning we have to leave no later than 8:40, meaning we need to get up around 8:00, 8:15 if we both want to shower and eat breakfast. I’m not sure what’s weirder, the fact that my body’s used to the schedule, or the fact that my mind is, too.
Anyway, we were pretty much on our own for the weekend. Friday, we saw the frescoes at the Chapel of Santa Maria Antiqua and then the Colosseum. The Colosseum wasn’t quite as big as I expected it to be based on movies and postcards and stuff, but when you stand on the deck and just look around, it hits you just how massive the thing really is and how much manpower it must’ve taken to build it. I got some good pictures, obviously. Saturday was our first sleep-in day – woke up at eleven, worked on my paper for a couple hours, lunch, more working on my paper, supermarket, dinner, then hanging out in the Amandas’ room.
Sunday, a group of us got together for brunch in Dhananjay and Harrison’s room – by pitching in three euro or so, we all got scrambled eggs, bread (fresh bread, not packaged), jam, Nutella, fresh fruit, and coffee. Lots of coffee. After that, we headed over to the flea market that’s set up every Sunday afternoon. Anything you could possibly want to buy, from clothing to food to electronics to souvenirs, they have a dozen booths each. The only thing I bought was a power converter so I could plug two-pronged thingies into the three-prong outlet in our wall. We wandered around the city for a couple hours after that, bought some gelato (current favorite flavor: lemon), dinner, then back to our respective flats for a night of reading.
Monday was paper day – we have two five-page papers due every Tuesday, and the library’s open all day Monday, so I don’t foresee any other Monday here being any different than this one. I finished my first paper on Saturday night, but I still had to add the bibliography and throw in a couple citations. I did all the research for my second paper, wrote maybe three hundred words, then photocopied/printed everything I needed to bring back home with me. At home, I got three and a half pages done before the Amandas knocked on our door and asked if we wanted to head over to the Spanish steps and the Colosseum all lit up (it was night by that point). Of course we went (again, more pictures I’ll put up on Facebook or Filckr at some point), of course it took longer than we expected, of course I didn’t make it back to my paper till just before midnight, of course it was worth it.
Nothing too overwhelming on Tuesday, just a couple site visits and the afternoon off. I napped for a few hours, ate dinner, hit up an Internet café for my e-mail/Facebook fix, and read till bedtime. Same thing today.
I think I’m all written out for the time being. No fun anecdotes to close off with, just a general feeling of contentment as I’m finally getting the travel bug out of my system. On Sunday, I sat on the steps of the Piaza Trilussa for about an hour and just peoplewatched (yes, Microsoft Word, that’s a word). I probably saw more Americans than Italians wandering through the market. At some point, a guy sat down a couple rows in front of me and played his sax for about half an hour; that was neat. Anyway, hope summer is treating everyone well enough. It’s 7:42 a.m. CST as I’m posting this, so have a good day, I guess.
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